Anika Malayappan, of Danbury, smiles after defeating Abram Goda, of Bridgeport, in the final spell-off at the Hearst Media Services Regional Spelling Bee at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, Conn. Thursday, March 20, 2014.

When the going got tough, the tough got going. The tough spellers, that is.

That was the story as the regional competition sponsored by the Hearst Connecticut Media Group finished after a marathon 32 rounds around 11:55 p.m. Thursday with Anika Malayappan, 11, of Stadley Rough Elementary School in Danbury, defeating the remaining contestant with the word "sargassum." Anika, sister of previous five-time local champion, Rahul Malayappan, wins a trip to Washington, D.C. to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

One Danbury student, Aahil Nishad, a student at Stadley Rough School and the youngest contestant in the bee, was eliminated at the end of the seventh round, tripped up by the word "bric-a-brac."

Nishad, unfortunately, added the letter "k" to the end of both bric and brac.

Students from 31 different schools participated in the bee, one of three regional competitions being held in the state this year.

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54 competitors representing 31 schools

Traditionally in such contests, the number of competitors eliminated increase with each succeeding round as the words get tougher. But the opposite was true Thursday, as only one of the 14 remaining contestants misspelled a word in the sixth round and two were disqualified in the seventh round.

In contrast, the highest number of casualties occurred in the earliest rounds, with 11 eliminated in the first round, seven in the second, eight in the third, and 11 in the fourth.